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The Russian / Georgian Conflict and Its Impact on AzerbaijanWindow on Eurasia: Original
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Vienna, October 12 - Talgat Tadzhutdin, who was chosen
to head the Muslim Spiritual Directorate (MSD) of the European
Part of the USSR and Siberia in 1980 and continues to serve as
the head of its successor, the Central MSD of the Russian Federation,
marked his 60th birthday with an interview in which he talked
about the evolution of Islam over the last 30 years.

Born on October 12, 1948, and
educated at the Mir-i-Arab medressah in Bukhara and Al-Azhar
University in Cairo, Tadzhutdin said that thanks to his elderly
relatives from whom he learned the Arabic language and about
Islam, he had always wanted to be involved
with the faith but "had never wanted to be a mufti"
http://www.bashinform.ru/index.php?id=71438

But in July 1980, at the age
of 31, he was pushed by his teachers to become mufti, a job that
required him to navigate carefully between the requirements of
the Soviet state and his own desire to oversee the revival of
the Islamic community in the Russian Federation and neighboring
republics.

Because of Soviet anti-religious
policies which led to the destruction of more than 14,000 mosques
and the repression of some 60,000 mullahs and imams, Tadzhutdin
told Bashinform, his MSD in 1980 united and oversaw only 16 Muslim
communities in Bashkortostan and only 78 Muslim parishes elsewhere.

Many of these communities lacked
a mullah, and Tadzhutdin said his first project was to try to
increase the number of young Muslims studying to be spiritual
leaders up to his "dream" of 40 a year. That did not
happen overnight, but much has been accomplished: there are more
medrassahs and more than 2000 parishes in 30 regional MSDs under
his Central MSD.

Meanwhile, the mufti continued,
he had overseen the transformation of his own organization, which
traces its organizational heritage back to the tsarist Mohammedan
Spiritual Assembly of Orenburg whose 220th anniversary Tadzhutdin
had helped to
celebrate in Ufa last month http://www.islamrf.ru/news/russia/rusnews/5047/

In May 1990, Tadzhutdin was
elected chairman of the Administration of International Ties
of Muslim Organizations in the USSR, the only all-union Muslim
institution in Soviet times and one that established him as the
leading spokesman for the Islamic community there both to the
government and to the umma abroad.

And then after the collapse
of Soviet power, he became head of the Central MSD for Muslims
in the Russian Federation, an official structure which controlled
far more communities than had its predecessor but on a much smaller
territory and with competition from other groups, such as Ravil
Gainutdin's Council of Muftis of Russia
(SMR).

As he has done in many of his
public appearances, Tadzhutdin in this interview stressed the
antiquity of Islam on the territory of what is now the Russian
Federation - Islam arrived in Derbent within the lifetimes of
the companions of the Prophet and in the Middle Volga a century
later -- and the loyalty of Russia's Muslims to Moscow.

But again as has been the case
in most such formal presentations, Tadzhutdin did not mention
three aspects of his career as mufti that have attracted the
attention of many Muslims and non-Muslims alike.

First, both in Soviet times
and since, the Ufa-based mufti has on almost all occasions followed
the government's line, sometimes so slavishly that many Muslims
view him as little more than an agent in place of the security
agencies. Indeed, he is widely rumored to be a colonel in the
Russian security services.

Second, Tadzhutdin is sometimes
referred to as the "drunken" mullah not only because
he is known to drink himself but because several years ago, he
broke a bottle of champagne across the door of a new mosque,
an action that not only violates Islamic law but horrified many
believers.

And third, the longtime MSD
head has often said things that have gotten him in trouble with
the authorities he has tried to serve. Most recently, for example,
he called for a jihad against the United States, something that
the Kremlin at that time at least was not interested in and that
other Muslims in Russia suggested that he should not have done.

In many ways, Tadzhutdin is
a transitional figure, someone who began in the Soviet Muslim
establishment but who continues to occupy a key position in the
official hierarchy. On the one hand, that has allowed him to
retain his access to the Russian political elite and to the Moscow
Patriarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church.

But on the other, his personality
and behavior have sparked the rise of alternative structures
like SMR and more importantly raised questions in the minds of
many believers as to whether there is any reason for MSDs like
the one he heads to continue to exist. After all, these tsarist
and Soviet institutions have no basis in Islamic law.
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